Debate over cat-crowded park in Peru

Lita Velasquez feeds cats in the central park of Lima's upscale seaside Miraflores district, in Peru, Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2012. / AP Photo/Martin Mejia

(AP) LIMA, Peru - It's the cat's meow, a corner of the central park of Lima's upscale seaside Miraflores district.

About 120 felines populate the sidewalks and grass, lounge in the trees and shelter behind the grates of at the Church of the Miraculous Virgin, where they are fed by devoted volunteers.

Tourists pose for pictures with the cats, which are generally friendly and accept the caresses of strangers.

A woman talks on her phone as a cat sits on an arm rest nearby, in the central park of Lima's upscale seaside Miraflores district, in Peru, Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2012.

/ AP Photo/Martin Mejia

But they are not universally adored. Local resident Mariano Lindley said the smell of cat urine and excrement can be overwhelming. "When they proliferate, they spread disease," he said.

Every once in awhile, unknown cat-haters poison their food, killing a few. And every September, when a cat-eating festival is held south of Lima in the town of Canete, volunteers pull guard duty to ensure they don't become someone's lunch.

"Unfortunately, we are in Peru, a place where I think we could use a little more civilization and humanity," said Natalie Sanchez, a member of Miraflores' Voluntary Feline Defense Group.

Pedestrians walk past cats gathered in the central park of Lima's upscale seaside Miraflores district, in Peru, Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2012.

/ AP Photo/Martin Mejia

The 12-member group banded together in 2000 to care for the cats and put some up for adoption. Members gather donations to sterilize the animals and treat them for parasites.

Some of the cats descend from a pair municipal authorities introduced in the late 1990s to control a rat infestation. Others were abandoned by people tired of caring for them.

After a local TV feature this week focused attention on the cat colony, a top official at Peru's environmental health agency, Micaela Talavera, announced a commission would be created to determine whether they posed a health risk.

Sanchez called the announcement an overreaction, saying the cats get constant veterinarian attention.

A cat sits in the central park of Lima's upscale seaside Miraflores district, in Peru, Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2012.

/ AP Photo/Martin Mejia

"The cats of Miraflores' park are part of Miraflores. They are a Miraflores tradition," she said. "They've already been living there for 15 years. You can't call them a scourge or a plague."

[bjr999]

need pics of the 'cat-eating festival in canete'

[Tina1649]

The TNR (Trap, Neuter, Release) method establishes base colonies for feral cats and maintained by humane volunteers. Vets also check TNR cats for diseases and provide vaccinations so that the existing feral colony is healthy and they cannot reproduce. Unfortunately, the TNR system is not applied to homeless people who create their own rank and vile colonies with their urine and excrement deposits in and around public buildings - huge health hazard. If this so-called health risk commission would only do their homework on TNR feral cat groups (easily available on the web) they would easily learn that the system works well all around the world.

[Nature_Advocate]

There is NOT ONE shred of proof that TNR works ANYWHERE. You all keep claiming it works, but when asked for proof there's never a reply.

The ONLY difference between rats and cats these days is that people who own and love pet-rats aren't severely mentally unbalanced and trying to hoard sterilized feral-rat populations on other people's public and private properties -- while also relentlessly petitioning all their lawmakers to do so.

Pet-rat owners, and all other types of pet owners, at least have THEIR sh** together.

If only the same were true of all these mentally-ill TNR cat-hoarders.

(I still think it's their cats' Toxoplasma gondii parasites in the cat-lovers' brains that make them so unfalteringly blind to their own stupidity, hypocrisy, and absolute absurdity.)

These are just the diseases they've been spreading to humans, not counting the ones they spread to all wildlife. THERE ARE NO VACCINES against many of these, and are in-fact listed as bio-terrorism agents. They include: Campylobacter Infection, Cat Scratch Disease, Coxiella burnetti Infection (Q fever), Cryptosporidium Infection, Dipylidium Infection (tapeworm), Hookworm Infection, Leptospira Infection, Giardia, Plague, Rabies, Ringworm, Salmonella Infection, Toxocara Infection, Toxoplasma. [Centers for Disease Control, July 2010] Sarcosporidiosis, Flea-borne Typhus, and Tularemia can now also be added to that list.

A FEW examples.

Cat-Transmitted PLAGUE:
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8059908
www.pagosasun.com/archives/2011/07July/072811/webplague.html
www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/oregon-man-suffering-plague-critical-condition-article-1.1094782
www.daily-times.com/ci_20849462/health-department-said-taos-cat-has-plague

(Totally disproving that oft-spewed myth that cats in Europe could have prevented the plague. No rats nor fleas even required. Cats themselves carry and transmit the plague all on their own.)

Tularemia:
www.news-gazette.com/news/health/miscellaneous/2011-09-14/cats-savoy-test-positive-rabbit-fever.html
www.westyellowstonenews.com/news/article_02fceec6-f695-11e0-b752-001cc4c002e0.html

Flea-borne Typhus:
www.ocregister.com/articles/county-317133-animals-cases.html

Hookworm -- ruined Miami Businesses:
articles.sun-sentinel.com/2010-11-24/news/fl-miami-beach-hookworms-20101123_1_hookworm-infections-feral-miami-beach

Cats' most insidious disease of all, their Toxoplasma gondii parasite they spread through their feces into all other animals. This is how humans get it in their dinner-meats, cats roaming around stockyards and farms. This is why cats are routinely destroyed around gestating livestock or important wildlife by shooting or drowning them. So those animals won't suffer from the same things that can happen to the unborn fetus of any pregnant woman. (Miscarriages, still-births, hydrocephaly, and microcephaly.) It can kill you at any time during your life once you've been infected. It becomes a permanent lifetime parasite in your mind, killing you when your immune system becomes compromised. It can last over a year in any soils or waters and not even washing your hands or garden vegetables in bleach will destroy the oocysts. Contrary to cat-lovers' self-deceptive myths, a cat can become reinfected many times during its life and spread millions of oocysts each time. It's now linked to the cause of autism, schizophrenia, and brain cancers. This parasite is also killing off rare and endangered marine-mammals along all coastlines from cats' T. gondii oocysts in run-off from the land, the oocysts surviving even in saltwater.

Its strange life cycle is meant to infect rodents. Any rodents infected with it lose their fear of cats and are attracted to cat urine.

scitizen.com/neuroscience/parasite-hijacks-the-mind-of-its-host_a-23-509.html

Cats attract rodents to your home with their whole slew of diseases. If you want rodents in your home keep cats outside of it to attract diseased rodents to your area. I experienced this phenomenon (as have many others), and all rodent problems disappeared after I shot and buried every last cat on my land.

The time has come to destroy them all whenever spotted away from supervised confinement. There's no other solution. We have nobody but cat-lovers to thank for this health and ecological disaster. Stray-cats, the very source of all feral-cats, need to be euthanized too or you'll never be rid of the feral-cat problem.

[nohater]

what do all those cats use for a litter box? it must smell like heck somewhere there, phew. have trouble enough with two neighborhood cats that use my lot as their personal litter box. would like to trap them and dump them two counties away at an spca. hate cats now because of neighbors, hate cats.

[Nature_Advocate]

Please don't dump them anywhere. Do the responsible thing and dispose of them safely and responsibly (wear gloves while doing so yourself and bury or burn those too after you are done). You can't even use them to feed wild animals safely. Some native wildlife on my land died from some disease in cat-meat. Leaving ANY of these man-made invasive species cats out in nature, alive OR dead, is no better than intentionally poisoning your native wildlife to death.

But if you must relocate them ... find the nearest township or county which has adopted these cat-lovers' new "No Kill" religion, and dump them there. Let THEM take care of those cats for you, just like they want. It's how everyone is now using "No Kill" programs in adjoining towns, counties, and states. Trap and dump your unwanted animals on them. They LOVE taking care of your animals for you! It's EXACTLY what they want! :-)

[Nature_Advocate]

Please don't dump them anywhere. Do the responsible thing and dispose of them safely and responsibly (wear gloves while doing so yourself and bury or burn those too after you are done). You can't even use them to feed wild animals safely. Some native wildlife on my land died from some disease in cat-meat. Leaving ANY of these man-made invasive species cats out in nature, alive OR dead, is no better than intentionally poisoning your native wildlife to death.

But if you must relocate them ... find the nearest township or county which has adopted cat-lovers' new "No Kill" religion, and dump them there. Let THEM take care of those cats for you, just like they want. It's how everyone is now using "No Kill" programs in adjoining towns, counties, and states. Trap and dump your unwanted animals on them. They LOVE taking care of your animals for you! It's EXACTLY what they want! :-)

[Valhalla0907]

I'm not a big fan of the "spay and release" method. I like cats, have one(1)as a pet. Out here in the country, a cat colony in a barn is an infestation and health hazard. If the residents of Miraflores enjoy their tradition of care and can maintain a livable relationship with their cats, it's their town.